Dead Wrong

by Janice Kay Johnson

  "She—Karin—wasn't…wasn't my girlfriend."

  "She was a friend. Go."

  "Yeah. Okay." With shaking hands, he shoved files in his briefcase. He had to do something today. Distract himself, or he'd go crazy.

  He'd have walked out without his coat or gloves if Fein hadn't thrust them at him. He blundered out the front door past another assistant D.A. escorting a big family group in. They turned to stare after him. His expression must have been terrible.

  Somehow he got his 4Runner started and pulled into the snow-covered street without hitting anyone.

  Karin. It was only four days ago that he'd sat in the same booth with her at J.R.'s. God. Were she and Gavin dating? Should he call Gavin? But what if Fein was wrong? Or his mother was wrong? What if it wasn't Karin?

  He realized he was gasping for breath, his fingers flexing on the steering wheel. Let it be somebody else, he prayed. Someone I don't know.

  As if that would be any better. As if this imaginary woman he didn't know wouldn't have parents, sisters, brothers, lovers, friends, whose lives would be shattered by the words, "I'm sorry to have to tell you…"

  He surfaced to realize he wasn't on his way to his apartment. He was crossing the Deschutes River on a concrete bridge built by the WPA in the late thirties. The house where his mother had grown up was only a few blocks east. The house where her father, the Elk Springs police chief, had abused and terrorized his three daughters after their mother abandoned them. His mother and Aunt Renee spoke of him with revulsion and maybe still fear resonating in their voices. Everything they had become had to do with Ed Patton. All the choices they made. Most of all, because they were determined not to be like him, even though all had followed in his footsteps by going into law enforcement.

  The irony of Gillian dying here, blocks from the house Ed Patton had ruled with cruelty, had seemed especially bitter. Will had believed—God, he'd believed—that she wouldn't have died if it weren't for that endless fight with a ghost. If his mother hadn't showed mercy where mercy wasn't deserved…But what if it had been? What if Ricky Mendoza had been working hard to deserve Meg Patton's trust when he pulled out of that dark parking lot, fully believing Gillian was safe, getting in her car, going home to throw what she'd done in the face of her boyfriend?

  Will risked getting his 4Runner stuck in snow by pulling into the unplowed parking lot for the small city park that nestled here on the Deschutes, south of the bridge.

  In summer, it was green, lawn kept irrigated and manicured by city workers so that it remained plush and rich, emerald-green even in the heat of August. Weeping willows, down close to the bank, long sighing branches creating shadowy caverns within, perfect places for children to dream or teenage boys to make out with their girlfriends. He could close his eyes and smell the new-mown grass, hear the murmur of the river, running low in late summer, the muffled voices of kids splashing in the shallows under mothers' watchful eyes, see the shifting shades of a thousand colors of green as a breeze stirred the veil of branches.

  On a cool spring night, it was the perfect place to leave a body, deep in the shadows beneath a willow.

  Today, shrubs and trees were bare of leaves, branches black or gray. Snow laid an untouched white carpet down to the ice that glazed all but the deepest channel. It mounded like whipping cream on rocks in the river, puffs here and there, white against gray and black. Even the houses on the other side of the river were colorless today, as if the cold and the snow still falling had changed the film to black and white.

  Will sat behind the wheel, engine and heater running, and looked at the tree under which Gillian's naked body had been found, her face smothered in the goddamn cup of a jockstrap. The idea revolted him still. It was a last horrific insult, for the killer to metaphorically shove her face in his crotch.

  Now Amy and Karin, too. Why? Why? Did their deaths have anything to do with his decision to come home to Elk Springs? If so—he gripped the steering wheel so hard it creaked and his knuckles burned—if so, he would leave. He'd never come back.

  The tires spun as he put the 4Runner in gear and stepped too hard on the gas. Maybe he should go now. Throw his stuff in a suitcase and just drive. Never look back. Maybe in seeking peace, a return to a time before he was consumed with rage and grief, he had brought down vengeance from on high. Maybe he was meant to suffer.

  More selfishness. No God would rain unspeakable torment onto two innocent women only to teach him a lesson.

  Shaking, he took his foot from the gas. His breath rasped. A minute passed. Two. Three. Finally he was able to drive out of the deep snow onto the street and start back the way he'd come.

  He made it home without incident, dropping his briefcase on the table, his wool coat over the back of a chair. Using his cell phone, he called Travis. Got his voice mail.

  "There's been another murder. I'm home. Call me."

  The phone rang not ten minutes later. He picked up his cell phone before realizing it was the one hanging on the wall that was ringing.

  "Patton."

  "Damn it, Will." Travis's voice was ragged. "Who?"

  "Karin Kristensen. Mom left me a message at the office this morning. I don't know anything else yet, except that her murder was like Amy Owen's."

  "And like Gillian's," his friend said softly.

  He bowed his head, squeezed his eyes shut. "Yeah. Like Gillian's."

  "Karin." Travis said her name with quiet disbelief. "We just saw her."

  How could she be dead? Will shared that incredulity. He could hear the timbre of her voice, her laugh, see the sway of her hips as she walked ahead of him through the crowded room. Her face was vivid in his mind.

  "She seemed like a really nice woman." Will slumped onto the couch and shoved his fingers into his hair. "Marcie can sometimes be irritating. Bronwen a bitch. Why not one of them?"

  "Because they aren't blond. Karin looked one hell of a lot like Amy."

  "And Gilly."

  "He either likes the type, or he chose Karin and Amy because they looked like Gillian."

  Will swore.

  Travis cleared his throat. "Buddy, has it occurred to you that one of the few things all three had in common was you?"

  Anguish welled in him, choked his voice. "I took Karin out twice. Goddamn it! Twice. Amy a few times ten years ago. How can that mean anything?"

  "Maybe it doesn't," his friend said heavily. "But Elk Springs is filled with beautiful blondes, most of whom you've never met. Especially at this time of year."

  "But out-of-towners don't come alone," he argued, because he didn't want Travis to be right, that the killer targeted these two women in particular. "They leave bars in couples, or with a pack of friends. They'd be harder to snatch."

  "I'm not necessarily talking about out-of-towners. What about all the women who work the lifts at Juanita Butte? Teach skiing? Wait tables? Think about J.R.'s alone—half the waitresses are hot blondes. Why hasn't one of them been killed? Why only women you knew?"

  "You knew all of them, too."

  "Sure I did. I dated Amy and Karin both, too." He paused. "But not Gillian. That's why I keep thinking this has something to do with you."

  "Maybe I killed them," Will said harshly. "Is that what you're suggesting?"

  "You know it isn't."

  "Then what?" Suddenly, he was yelling. "Goddamn it, what?"

  "I don't know!" Travis yelled back. "You think if I knew I wouldn't say?"

  Will yanked on his hair hard enough to hurt. "No. God. I'm sorry, Travis."

  "You want me to come over?"

  "No. Were you painting when I called? No," he said again. "We might as well both get some work done."

  "You'll let me know if you hear anything?"

  He agreed and hung up. For the longest time, he just sat there, feeling exhausted, baffled and helpless. He couldn't do anything. And he hated that feeling.

  Will had always known what he wanted out of life, and he wasn't given to waiting patiently for it to come to
him. When he and his mom first moved back to Elk Springs, she kept chickening out of going to his father and saying, "Guess what? I never mentioned being pregnant, but, well, we have this kid together, and he wants to meet you." Not easy to say. As an adult, he could see that. As a fourteen-year-old kid, he'd decided to quit waiting for her to make the first move and made it himself.

  He could still remember the expression on Jack Murray's face when without warning he came face-to-face with a teenage boy who could only be his son. Photos of the two of them taken at the same ages could have been of either.

  But it turned out okay. Another week, two weeks, however long Will's mother would have dragged her feet, wouldn't have lessened the shock any for Will's dad.

  Will had been a hard-driving basketball player, all-state in high school and a starting forward in college. In class, he led discussions, played the devil's advocate, challenged teachers. Since passing the bar, he'd been decisive and aggressive on the job. He didn't wait for opportunities; he seized them.

  But this—this, he had no way of combating. He didn't even know that these murders had anything to do with him! Maybe speculating that they did was pure egoism. What could be more self-centered than to believe that, if there was an enemy, it had to be his?

  Because no one else counted in this universe?

  Eventually, as the day went on, he sat down at the table with his files spread out. He worked on an opening for a negligent homicide trial he'd inherited from his predecessor, looked over notes in preparation for a meeting with a victim's parents the next day, and even made a couple of calls. Maybe half an hour of work that took him all day. But his concentration was fragmented, shattered into glittering, razor-edged shards spread far and wide. Past gluing together. Easy to cut himself on.

  Travis called in the late afternoon, but their conversation was brief.

  "I haven't heard anything."

  "Call me when you do."

  Shortly afterward, other friends started calling. Jody Cox was the first.

  "Have you heard?" Her voice was high, tremulous, on the verge of hysteria. "Amy's murder was awful! But now Karin, too? Will, I'm scared!"

  He couldn't honestly tell her not to be. Jody was blond. "Dye your hair" didn't seem like comforting advice. And would it matter? Did the victim have to be blond when the murder happened, or did it only matter that the killer knew she was?

  "We're all pretty shaken up," he said. "But Jody, if I were you I wouldn't go anywhere without a girlfriend. Or two or three."

  "But wouldn't I be safer with a guy?" Her breath hitched. "You mean…"

  "I mean, we don't know who's doing this. It may be coincidence that Amy and Karin were friends. But the guy who killed them may be someone they both knew."

  "Someone I know," she whispered.

  "Just…don't date. Don't trust anyone."

  "The police will find him. Won't they?"

  "Sure they will. But every woman in this town needs to be damn careful until this maniac is locked up."

  Two minutes after he hung up from talking to her, the phone rang again. Gavin.

  "Hey, you heard?"

  "Yeah, I almost called you. But I was still hoping they might have been wrong when they IDed her."

  "That girl we knew in high school came to talk to me. The one who's a cop now." He sounded upset.

  "Trina Giallombardo?"

  "Yeah, her. Why'd she come running to talk to me? I wasn't that good a friends with Karin. Have they been pounding on your door? You dated her!"

  "A couple of times," Will said. "I thought you and she had hooked up since then."

  His voice rose. "Did you tell them that? Is that why they acted like I was some kind of suspect?"

  "They haven't talked to me yet. And you shouldn't assume you're a suspect because they asked you questions. Any time there's a murder, the investigators interview everyone who's spent time with the victim in the recent past. You know that."

  "Yeah, sure," Gavin muttered. "There was just something about the way she looked at me. It got to me. I mean, she tells me a friend has been murdered, and I'm not supposed to be upset? Instead I'm having to explain to her where I was last night?"

  "Had you seen Karin since Saturday night?"

  "No! She and I were both at J.R.'s early Saturday. We had a drink together. We were hitting it off, but I hadn't even gotten around to calling her to see if she wanted to take it any further. I though of calling her last night, but I'd rented a couple of DVDs, kicked back and never got around to it."

  "Did they tell you any more about her murder?" Will asked. "I don't know anything. Just that they found her body."

  "It was dumped in front of a house that was being built at some new development. A fire started in this unoccupied house, and when the fire truck arrived they saw the body. I guess she was frozen, so they think she was killed the night before."

  "They haven't figured out where she was snatched, then?"

  "What makes you think they'd tell me?" Gavin asked, with that edge in his voice. "You're the one who'll get the goods. Tell me when you find out any more, will you?"

  Will thought about denying once again that he had any in, but they both knew it wasn't the truth. His mother probably would tell him what she'd learned so far when she came by.

  Knowing she rarely got a decent meal in the first days after a murder when she was the investigator, Will decided to put together dinner. It would give him something to do. He actually liked to cook. He'd taken over doing a lot of the cooking when he was in high school. Scott worked really long hours up at the ski area from first snowfall through April, and once Will's mother got promoted into Major Crimes, her hours got worse, too. Will had opened the first cookbook in self-defense, but he'd discovered he had a knack for making food taste good. He started tweaking recipes, even making up his own. These days, he cooked because he enjoyed it, because moving around in the kitchen, dicing, measuring, stirring, relaxed him.

  Today he couldn't get too fancy since his kitchen was still minimally equipped. But he made a hell of a spaghetti sauce, if he did say so. Already opening the refrigerator, he decided to add meatballs.

  He sauteed onions and garlic, lamented the lack of fresh tomatoes and chopped canned ones. He dumped burgundy in with a free hand, diced green pepper, spiced. By the time he'd defrosted ground pork in the microwave, his phone had rung three more times.

  Bronwen Fessler contained her fear better than Jody did, but she felt it. "I'm afraid to even close the store by myself," she said. "If this wasn't my busy season, I'd take a vacation. A long one."

  Like everyone else, Jimmy McCartin was sure Will would know every gory detail and was disappointed that he didn't. "You know, that house may get away if you don't make up your mind," he said at the end.

  "I've made up my mind," Will said from between clenched teeth, and hit End.

  Vince Baker sounded as if he'd called at his wife's urging, under the belief that Will would know more than everyone else did.

  "Carlos—her brother—is a firefighter. He called her this morning, and she's been on the phone all day. It's all anyone can think about."

  Will shaped a meatball and set it on waxed paper. He kept on eye on the small TV on the kitchen counter, because the local news was coming after a commercial break. The sound was muted, but he was ready to turn it back up once the pair of newscasters started talking about the murder.

  "The women are scared," he said.

  "They should be." In Vince's voice Will heard an echo of his own sense of helplessness and shock. "You know, Karin was crocheting a baby blanket for us. I don't think she and Maria are even that close, but she said she loved to do handwork. It was…" he faltered "…it was yellow, because we don't know whether we're having a boy or a girl."

  Will was momentarily taken aback by the image of the sleek beauty he knew sitting on a couch with her feet tucked under her, crocheting. Dreaming, maybe, about the booties and caps and crib blankets she would someday make for her own baby
.

  He looked down to see that he'd squeezed the meat mixture in his hand so hard, it was oozing between his fingers. He opened them and scraped the mess off on the side of the bowl.

  "Hey," Vince said. "Turn on the news. They're talking about the murder."

  With his elbow, Will hit the volume button on the remote.

  "…the shocking discovery of another young woman, brutally raped and murdered." The broadcaster wasn't any older than Karin had been, a pretty blonde as well. Her tone was breathless, avid. "A source tells us she had apparently been strangled by the elastic waistband of a jockstrap. Police refuse to confirm whether Amy Owen, murdered just two weeks ago, was also strangled with a jockstrap."

  Shit. His mother would be furious to find out that kind of detail had been leaked. One of the firefighters must have talked.

  He said a hasty goodbye to Vince and hung up as the image onscreen shifted to yellow crime scene tape stretched across several sawhorses blocking the snowy expanse of what was probably a street, judging by the tire tracks. Will tried to figure out whether the development was one he'd seen, but the snow hid any identifying landmarks. A black Butte County Sheriff's Department Explorer was parked just on the other side of the blockade. The uniformed deputy standing in the falling snow said, "I can't comment until the investigator has released a statement."

  They'd already dug up some backstory on Karin—she'd grown up in Boise, Idaho, where her grieving parents still lived. She worked in the assessor's office and had gone to Elk Springs, according to a brother who briefly appeared on the porch of a modest brick ranch style house, because she loved to ski.

  Her family must be thinking, if she'd gone to Sun Valley, Idaho, or Vail, Colorado, she'd still be alive. If she'd gone to Bend, Oregon, just up Highway 20, she'd be alive. She'd never have met Amy Owen or Will Patton.

  Her bad luck.

  He swore and turned the TV off when the newscasters started talking about a three-car accident with a fatality south toward Medford.

  Thanks to somebody's big mouth, people would soon make the connection between Karin's murder and Gillian's. Not many women were strangled with a goddamn jockstrap.